My explorer tried to crush my dog

[tpchristian]

I am so sick of this POS vehicle. Firstly all the MFT issues for a year and a half and no applink. Now this. The stupid buttons for the rear seat are easily bumped. That is what happened when my wife lifted our dog into the back end of the explorer. The seat started to flip and crush him. She hit the button again and instead of reversing, it tried to crush him again. We could not get it to fold back into the well without trying to crush him. We finally got him lifted out of there, but it was hard. Maybe a younger dog could have just jumped out of the way, but he is pretty old and doesn't get around that well anymore. Now that he is out, I had to really yank on my cargo cover that was also pinned in by the folding seat. Until I got that out it would not fold all the way over and then back in.

This thing is a safety hazzard!!! I hate this vehicle!

 

[dink117]

I am so sick of this POS vehicle. Firstly all the MFT issues for a year and a half and no applink. Now this. The stupid buttons for the rear seat are easily bumped. That is what happened when my wife lifted our dog into the back end of the explorer. The seat started to flip and crush him. She hit the button again and instead of reversing, it tried to crush him again. We could not get it to fold back into the well without trying to crush him. We finally got him lifted out of there, but it was hard. Maybe a younger dog could have just jumped out of the way, but he is pretty old and doesn't get around that well anymore. Now that he is out, I had to really yank on my cargo cover that was also pinned in by the folding seat. Until I got that out it would not fold all the way over and then back in.

This thing is a safety hazzard!!! I hate this vehicle!

Hope your dog is OK! I always thought it was weird that they put the auto fold button right there where anything you load could bump it. The manual fold buttons don't pose such a risk, but I think that auto button outta be moved or equipped with a feature you have to press and hold it for a few seconds before the full auto takes over?

 

[fmxman1564]

I had that happen to me almost too, but didn't actually... I Feel your pain cause I did have my dogs leg fall through one of the openings from rear back cargo to center captains chairs... He fell over sideways and it got stuck and wedged was the worst 20 sec of my life trying to get his leg free and unstuck with out breaking it... Not the best way introduce him to his first ride in new truck.. He was scared of ruck for weeks... Better now and middle seats competley out.. Now it's like his old van and is happy

 

[BethesdaEC]

I think that the buttons should be behind a flip up protective door. I have been unloading cargo and something has shifted and pressed the button. Unfortunately in that scenario the hold would not help.

 

[Joe Dirt]

I'd like to see the Ford finally post in one of these threads. It's getting old, and this should have been fixed at minimum one model year ago.

 

[Fshultz]

I've had this happen twice and agree that there needs to be a safety cover over the buttons. Both times it happened to me I had things loaded in the back so it risked damaging the items on top of the seats and the car itself. There is no way to reverse the motion once it's engaged that I've found. I had to unload the truck and let it fold open then close back up again before it would stop. I never thought about it being a safety issue but I can definitely see kids and pets getting trapped in there as well.

 

[13Sport]

I'm so happy the Sport comes w/ manual fold seats. If it hadn't I would have likely have wired a custom switch to enable/disable the buttons. If you don't use the power receptacle there, someone posted a while back a mod w/ a switch that took it's place. When flipped it disabled all of the buttons on the panel (eliminating accidental pushes)

 

[FordService]

Hi everyone,

I encourage you to post your suggestion to the "Your Ideas" tab of http://social.ford.com. Once posted, members of the community can vote on it. We review ideas daily.

Crystal

 

[Joe Dirt]

Crystal, I know it's not your direct responsibility to pursue it, but honestly- it's a safety issue that shouldn't need a post on a kitschy site on Facebook to be addressed like adding another color to the mood lighting. Glad you posted in the thread though, thanks for reading...

 

[phareous]

I'm curious did you hit the SAME button or did you hit an opposite button? Just curious

 

[plumbago]

I warned our Border Collie about the switch. Have had no problems, but then again he's smarter then a lot of people. It would'nt hurt though to wire in a master cut off toggle switch into the seat switch. It would be very easy, and Ford should have done it....um

 

[Fast Gator]

I never gave those switches a second thought, but now.............
What would keep a kid from playing with them?
I have manual 3rd row seats btw

Glad no dogs where hurt

 

[JohnnyDop]

Imagine having a few fuel cans back there spill over because of this. Wow, would that be an issue. You'd need to replace all the carpet and maybe the seats back there or the smell would never go away.

I could see someone pursuing legal action if their child or pet got hurt or if a nasty liquid spill was caused by those switches. I dont see how a judge wouldnt agree there is a clear design defect there.

This might be a bad analogy but its the equivalent of having the moon roof switch right next to the headlight buttons and not being able to close it until it fully opens first.

Pouring rain, let me turn on the headlights, ooooops!

 

[jrmexplorer]

Seems to me another member here had rigged a cutoff switch to prevent this from happening. Another member had rigged a cover.